Analysis of Hexameters
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)
William, my teacher, my friend ! dear William and dear Dorothea !
Smooth out the folds of my letter, and place it on desk or on table ;
Place it on table or desk ; and your right hands loosely half-closing,
Gently sustain them in air, and extending the digit didactic,
Rest it a moment on each of the forks of the five-forkéd left hand,
Twice on the breadth of the thumb, and once on the tip of each finger ;
Read with a nod of the head in a humouring recitativo ;
And, as I live, you will see my hexameters hopping before you.
This is a galloping measure ; a hop, and a trot, and a gallop !
All my hexameters fly, like stags pursued by the staghounds,
Breathless and panting, and ready to drop, yet flying still onwards,
I would full fain pull in my hard-mouthed runaway hunter ;
But our English Spondeans are clumsy yet impotent curb-reins ;
And so to make him go slowly, no way left have I but to lame him.
William, my head and my heart ! dear Poet that feelest and thinkest !
Dorothy, eager of soul, my most affectionate sister !
Many a mile, O ! many a wearisome mile are ye distant,
Long, long, comfortless roads, with no one eye that doth know us.
O ! it is all too far to send to you mockeries idle :
Yea, and I feel it not right ! But O ! my friends, my belovéd !
Feverish and wakeful I lie,--I am weary of feeling and thinking.
Every thought is worn down,--I am weary, yet cannot be vacant.
Five long hours have I tossed, rheumatic heats, dry and flushing,
Gnawing behind in my head, and wandering and throbbing about me,
Busy and tiresome, my friends, as the beat of the boding night-spider.
I forget the beginning of the line :
[Image][Image][Image][Image][Image] ... my eyes are a burthen,
Now unwillingly closed, now open and aching with darkness.
O ! what a life is the eye ! what a strange and inscrutable essence !
Him that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him ;
Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother ;
Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber ;
Even for him it exists, it moves and stirs in its prison ;
Lives with a separate life, and `Is it a Spirit ?' he murmurs :
`Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language.'
There was a great deal more, which I have forgotten. ... The last line
which I wrote, I remember, and write it for the truth of the sentiment,
scarcely less true in company than in pain and solitude :--
William, my head and my heart ! dear William and dear Dorothea !
You have all in each other ; but I am lonely, and want you !
Scheme | ABCXDEXFX GGEGH DEIGBJCICJE K KGGHEEXGX KIX AF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101101111001010 11011110011111110 1111011011110110 10011010010010010 11010111011011111 1101101011011110 11011010011 01111111110011 11010010010010010 11111101101 1001001011110110 1111101111010 110101110110011 01111110111111111 10110111101101 100101111010010 1001110010011110 111111111111 1111111111110 101111111111101 10001111110110010 10011111110110110 111011101011010 10010110100010011 10010011101101110 1010010101 111101 101001110010110 11011011010010010 1111001110010111 1110101011110 111011101110110 101110111010110 110101011010110 1111111011110010 110111111010011 111101001110110100 10110100101010 101101111001010 111011011110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 2,521 |
Words | 469 |
Sentences | 30 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 5, 11, 1, 9, 3, 2 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 48 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 276 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 71 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 13, 2023
- 2:20 min read
- 115 Views
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"Hexameters" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34255/hexameters>.
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